tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post20312189804957716..comments2016-03-09T11:32:05.283-05:00Comments on GROGNARDIA: Retrospective: "Glozel est Authentique!"James Maliszewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00341941102398271464noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-47369058851250135172012-03-10T06:24:41.869-05:002012-03-10T06:24:41.869-05:00As a renegade Lovecraft&#39;s fanboy, I look down ...As a renegade Lovecraft&#39;s fanboy, I look down on his mythos as a crass imposture. It&#39;s hard to take seriously a series of horror tales starring the Evil Seafood of Doom. If I sound like Edmund Wilson raised from the tomb with a revenge (Edmund who?), so be it.<br /><br />The genuine article is Algernon Blackwood. Everything that makes HPL cosmos great was taken from &#39;The Wendigo&#39; and from &#39;The Willows&#39;. The rest is purple prose and guys in green rubber suits. <br /><br />Cthulhu, as depicted by Lovecraft, is a fairy-tale giant which barely poses a bigger threat than a plush toy. If the big C was about to destroy the world-as-we-know-it, why procastinate? I can&#39;t stand that, at the end of &#39;The Call of Cthulhu&#39; tale, there&#39;s still people left around. And the number of casualties is disappointingly low. Stupid Squidhead! if only it had eaten New Zealand... ¡what the heck! in the real world, if such a hulk as R&#39;lyeh had emerged from the ocean, the tidal wave alone would have sufficed to wipe out every island and shore around the Pacific Ocean. Farewell Tokio, goodbye Los Angeles.<br /><br />Lovecraft says truth and nails it when he claims that mankind is an accident which won&#39;t last. He screws it when makes a point of babbling about functional magic or worldwide occult conspirations. These are superstitions which undermine the core premise. Magic is the delusion that puny humans can tame cosmic forces. Which contradicts the premise that mankind is irrelevant on the cosmic scale. Ditto about secret societies and doomsday plots. They give the false hope that there&#39;s somebody pulling the strings, that the end can be indefinitely delayed or that not every human effort is worthless. <br /><br />Lets figure that you are a lazy pig who hasn&#39;t bleached his bathroom in ages. To the point that the bacteria have become sapient and entire civilizations have risen and fallen in your bathtube. Would you care a dime about it? would you mind if bacteria are worshipping you? would you ever notice? Can them do something to stop you from awakening and bleaching the bathroom? Earth is the Old Ones&#39; bathroom, and we are the microbes infesting it.<br /><br />The chances for puny mankind to awake/hinder Chtulhu, summon/dispell Yog-Sothoth or whatever, are null. It would be easier summoning a hurricane or a volcano. You could pray the moon to stop as well. If someday you met an Elder One and still want a chance to live, you&#39;d rather get off its way as fast as you can. Nothing else works.anonimoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13204169087393199959noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-344262783722960212012-02-27T20:55:15.078-05:002012-02-27T20:55:15.078-05:00Well, in standard 1920&#39;s C of C, the oddities ...Well, in standard 1920&#39;s C of C, the oddities of autofire don&#39;t crop up much, as the only AF capable weapon in the core rulebook is the Thompson SMG. When you play or run a lot of Delta Green though, as I do...this flaw suddenly becomes a lot more noticeable.Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-84272132352511014152012-02-25T18:53:06.976-05:002012-02-25T18:53:06.976-05:00In terms of weaponry (and bare fist/kick attacks),...In terms of weaponry (and bare fist/kick attacks), yeah I have houseruled just a touch. I for sure will look at the auto burst. Things I don&#39;t like the second I see them I tend to change in any system I use.<br /><br />But I don&#39;t think combat stuff affects anybody running a game btb as much as it does mine, which I want to be a bit more pulpy (without being a full-on pulp daredevils type game). Fiddling, but not on a large scale.Brunomachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14122665488285424578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45424051506067869752012-02-23T23:24:31.461-05:002012-02-23T23:24:31.461-05:00I have one TOME book in my collection, &quot;Whisp...I have one TOME book in my collection, &quot;Whisperers in Darkness (and other tales).&quot; I&#39;d seen their ads in Dragon magazine many times in the 80s, but never saw any of their products in any gaming store except this one time. And it happened to be the book that contained an adventure about the Lost Colony of Roanoke, which had sparked my imagination as a kid totally independently.Adminhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18231177444509897757noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-10327392200580170242012-02-23T19:46:04.306-05:002012-02-23T19:46:04.306-05:00I&#39;ve still never laid eyes on the interior of ...I&#39;ve still never laid eyes on the interior of a CoC rulebook (though I would like to one of these days).<br /><br />I came to HPL in high school via an interest in dark fantasy literature. I have to say, I didn&#39;t &quot;get&quot; Lovecraft at all then. At the time I didn&#39;t find his stories either particularly engaging or scary.<br /><br />My perspective is different now, after having reread much of his work as a (somewhat) older adult.Brendanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12716340801054739658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-2533687732136227222012-02-23T16:32:38.706-05:002012-02-23T16:32:38.706-05:00Re. Lovecraftian board games, if you haven&#39;t a...Re. Lovecraftian board games, if you haven&#39;t already played it, Fantasy Flight&#39;s Arkham Horror is fun. Very pulpy, and the characters in the game look and play like just about every 1920&#39;s Call of Cthulhu team of investigators I&#39;ve ever played in or run.Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-35723535983910187292012-02-23T15:56:19.058-05:002012-02-23T15:56:19.058-05:00I wouldn&#39;t call BRP &quot;elegant,&quot; but i...I wouldn&#39;t call BRP &quot;elegant,&quot; but it does have strong internal consistency. It&#39;s probably the first RPG entitled to make that claim. It works well for Runequest and plays a big part in establishing the gritty feel of Glorantha as a setting. But BRP is too fiddly (IMO) for a game like CoC; it emphasizes all the wrong things. YMMV, as always. That&#39;s where ToC shines; not because you can&#39;t fail a Spot Hidden roll but because the whole package is geared toward the pacing and dramatic needs of a mystery/horror game.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11677895164302972957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-86807004402899589552012-02-23T14:56:38.297-05:002012-02-23T14:56:38.297-05:00The rpg introduced me to Lovecraft, and it remains...The rpg introduced me to Lovecraft, and it remains my favourite rpg to this day. As for it not being Properly Lovecraftian, <i>The Call of Cthulhu</i> and <i>The Dunwich Horror</i> are good signs that even HPL liked a bit of globe-trotting cultist-bashing now and then.Kelvin Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01928260185408072124noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-41195818170375566242012-02-23T14:43:02.430-05:002012-02-23T14:43:02.430-05:00Probably Wayne Barlow&#39;s Guides to Extraterrest...Probably Wayne Barlow&#39;s Guides to Extraterrestrials and Fantasy. Two fun, beautifully illustrated books.The Wasphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08636805818054637966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-9614227501209955162012-02-23T14:37:14.080-05:002012-02-23T14:37:14.080-05:00I experienced Lovecraft first by way of an SF illu...I experienced Lovecraft first by way of an SF illustration book that had painted pictures of creatures from across the history of SF and fantasy - I wish I could remember who the artist was. <br /><br />It wasn&#39;t until several years later that I first picked up a Lovecraft book, though, and it didn&#39;t take long to hook me. <br /><br />I&#39;ve actually never played Call of Cthulhu, but I have played some of the derivative board games like Elder Sign and Mansions of Madness. Games like that can never match the terror of a good Lovecraft story, mainly because standing on their own, his creatures aren&#39;t really that scary. They&#39;re just weird. It&#39;s the atmosphere that wins the frights.Jonesyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00587852177919783864noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-73600649499308855662012-02-23T08:21:10.575-05:002012-02-23T08:21:10.575-05:00Perhaps I&#39;m showing my advanced Grogdom, but I...Perhaps I&#39;m showing my advanced Grogdom, but I actually got into Lovecraft way before CoC. Lovecraft&#39;s use of the English language amazed me and was a major factor inspiring me to become a writer. I only played CoC a couple of times. Luckily I had a GM who had read Lovecraft and wrote his adventures accordingly.Sean McLachlanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12707887293766775133noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-45749181625175561402012-02-23T06:36:32.825-05:002012-02-23T06:36:32.825-05:00killer cover thoughkiller cover thoughfrothsofhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04663928183049867947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-55404980629708000182012-02-23T01:54:47.165-05:002012-02-23T01:54:47.165-05:00I first read Lovecraft when my High School literat...I first read Lovecraft when my High School literature teacher recommended him to me because of my enjoyment of Poe. <br />I should track him down and thank him. <br />I was already vaguely aware of Lovecraft though, through stories in Heavy Metal and various &#39;underground&#39; comics... also episodes on Night Gallery and some mentions in horror magazines that mentioned movies base on his writing. <br />There was also &#39;psychedelic&#39; band named after him.<br /><br />So, at least in my neck of time &amp; space HPL wasn&#39;t particularly obscure. <br /><br />It seems to me that part of the reason Cthulhu has become a plush toy is that, like all great monsters... it really is a frightening concept... that has to quickly be made into a joke... nervous laughter in the darkness to stop from screaming.knobgobblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14737954661234574830noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-76342591649279067082012-02-22T20:37:56.965-05:002012-02-22T20:37:56.965-05:00I had one TOME adventure called &#39;The Arkham Ev...I had one TOME adventure called &#39;The Arkham Evil&#39;. It had some interesting settings, but it was pretty bad, mostly because it was a railroad adventure of preordained events which didn&#39;t really require the participation of PCs.<br /><br />My first exposure to H.P. Lovecraft was a computer program from 1983 by Gary Musgrave: The Eye of Kadath. It was just typed computer code in a language I didn&#39;t know and couldn&#39;t use, so I had to work out how to play it from that, like a solo adventure. It was a solo adventure, very text-heavy and atmospheric. The Elder Things (called the Old Ones in this game) have always been my favourite Lovecraftian aliens as a result. It is now public domain, available at: http://gb64.com/game.php?id=10817&amp;d=15<br /><br />I found CoC later, and still later read the books.Questbirdhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00533422997911138615noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-44032889916643316042012-02-22T20:04:24.799-05:002012-02-22T20:04:24.799-05:00I do think that BRP has its obvious weaknesses. I...I do think that BRP has its obvious weaknesses. It deals with firearms in a rather quirky manner (no coherent rules for cover or concealment beyond a GM basically pulling them out of their butts), and it really breaks down in handling autofire (the notion that one gets more hits the more bullets one fires in a burst is ridiculous).<br /><br />Still, there&#39;s more to like than dislike to the system as a whole.Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-64768038194869931642012-02-22T19:24:26.938-05:002012-02-22T19:24:26.938-05:00it succeeded in spite of itself. BRP is not an esp...it succeeded in spite of itself. BRP is not an especially good set of rules to begin with, and it was a very poor choice...&quot;<br /><br />BRP is a terrific system, was a great alternative to early dependance on D20&#39;s, and the way I most heard it described for Call of Cthulhu in the 80&#39;s was &quot;elegant,&quot; a word I still use for it. Sure, I would not want to use it for Superhero stuff or even standard Sci Fi, but for fantasy and early century stuff I think it is the bees knees! The excellent Glorantha setting was not the only reason Runequest gave &quot;800 lb gorilla&quot; D&amp;D a run for it&#39;s money when no other fantasy system ever came close.Brunomachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14122665488285424578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-75954952339179822432012-02-22T18:44:56.888-05:002012-02-22T18:44:56.888-05:00There&#39;s something to this, Pat. You&#39;ve ki...There&#39;s something to this, Pat. You&#39;ve kind of hit the nail on the head. Most of Lovecraft&#39;s protagonists are passive to the extreme, and would make terrible PCs.<br /><br />I&#39;ve not read Colin Wilson&#39;s fiction, but what you describe is generally the way I run C of C. The players have far more to fear from the cultists and possibly each other than the Elder God du jour, because let&#39;s face it, when the Elder God is summoned, your players have pretty much already lost. :)Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-32853607247923030482012-02-22T18:40:49.395-05:002012-02-22T18:40:49.395-05:00I&#39;m going to have to disagree with you re. BRP...I&#39;m going to have to disagree with you re. BRP. Yes, it&#39;s showing it&#39;s age at this point (so is Old School D&amp;D), but when one considers its been in basically the same form since 1981, it&#39;s done pretty well. I like the rather logical progression of skill improvement. It&#39;s also a very simple game to teach to new players. Far easier than most modern games.<br /><br />I have no experience with Realms of Cthulhu, but the thought of trying to play Lovecraftian-style horror with Exploding Dice leaves me a bit cold. I know they changed the mechanics quite a bit (getting rid of the wild dice being a needed first step), but if a Cthulhu game becomes an action-adventure romp, you&#39;re kind of doing it wrong. :)<br /><br />Trail of Cthulhu looks interesting, and I admire Robin Laws as a designer. The concept of characters never having to miss that Spot Hidden roll to avoid picking up the one crucial clue is certainly enticing, but as a GM, I&#39;ve always used Masks of Nyarlathotep as a guide when running a horror game. If your mystery game is utterly dependent on the heroes/investigators locating one specific clue (and goes off the rails if they don&#39;t), it was probably doomed from the start. I&#39;ll almost certainly pick it up one of these days.Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-57524685207453988582012-02-22T18:29:28.817-05:002012-02-22T18:29:28.817-05:00Dunwich Horror is one I haven&#39;t picked up, I&#...Dunwich Horror is one I haven&#39;t picked up, I&#39;m afraid. Sounds like I may have to change that.Desert Rathttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14837747666646894084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-70991350361003177222012-02-22T15:57:14.379-05:002012-02-22T15:57:14.379-05:00Got the second game of my first Cthulhu campaign i...Got the second game of my first Cthulhu campaign in over a decade tonight (I think it’s going to pan out into a good ‘un, so I’ll be posting now and again about it), and it sure feels fine. Like an old friend. Been chomping at the bit for around two years at least, and here it is. I think the players are liking it (only my one player from the 90’s is in the current group, and she has extensive CoC experience. The other guys are minimal in their Lovecraft knowledge. I’m happy to be turning another passel of players into HP fans!).<br /><br />I’d say the characters in my games are “semi-pulp.” They ain’t Indy Jones, and the characters are not always badasses, but I do prefer characters that can get all action (in a realistic way) when called for. And the human level of violence is swift and brutal, with lots of running around and car chases, so there is a for sure pulp flavor. I’d rather there be that, than the typical Lovecraft “hero” who gets feint when he smells a fart, or meets a black man. <br /><br />I Love H.P. and the stories, but to me they are a set up for something a little more. I like campaigns with CoC so I can play more. A campaign with constant character death of shivering academics every game turns into a joke. Guns against Cthulhu, sez I!<br /><br />From lots of previous campaign experience going back to the 80’s, I never much liked the big adventure modules for CoC. I did mine for some ideas, but I much prefer to start a campaing with a few hooks and ways to go, add into the mix the character backgrounds, and let a campaign grow and evolve naturally. If find CoC to be very good for that. I’m lovin’ it!Brunomachttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14122665488285424578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-64928880163825499072012-02-22T15:11:41.623-05:002012-02-22T15:11:41.623-05:00An additional comment, I don’t think Lovecraft, pe...An additional comment, I don’t think Lovecraft, per se, represents the best source for CoC roleplaying, primarily because of both the passivity of his protagonists and the haphazard way in which they passively collide with the Mythos. “Call of Cthulhu” is, without a doubt, one of the most passive narratives in the history of fiction, with almost all of it playing out through dusty old newspaper clippings.<br /><br />I look to Colin Wilson’s “Return of the Lloigor” as a much more active example of how to play out the Mythos. Almost all the action comes as a result of nefarious riffraff, common folk with bad teeth and nothing to lose, and the main character’s growing horror that a simple punch to his stomach from one of these lurking thugs might be enough to kill him. His rising awareness of the terrible cost for low gain in trucking with these blowsy barflies only adds to the sense of dread. All that, then, is laid over the backdrop of his growing horror with the Mythos.<br /><br />Good stuff.<br /><br />The old TV show, “The Invaders” was probably as good as anything to illustrate how Lovecraft should be played in an active, engaged setting.Pat Henryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06787799814630339641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-65999724820247547342012-02-22T14:41:10.610-05:002012-02-22T14:41:10.610-05:00In addition to D&amp;DG, the 1e DMG refers to HPL ...In addition to D&amp;DG, the 1e DMG refers to HPL several times, as did articles in early issues of The Dragon. In my case, the pointers in the DMG and the D&amp;DG lead to my intro to HPL&#39;s fictions. <br /><br />Allan.grodoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11800184312511280050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-42390649625311755092012-02-22T14:35:18.593-05:002012-02-22T14:35:18.593-05:00My friends and I adored CoC and played it frequent...My friends and I adored CoC and played it frequently from the moment it appeared on the market, but we also firmly believed (and I still do) that it succeeded in spite of itself. BRP is not an especially good set of rules to begin with, and it was a very poor choice to be the foundation for a game like CoC. Whether any particular CoC &quot;adventure&quot; flies or crashes depends almost entirely on the GM&#39;s talent at making silk purses out of sows&#39; ears. I find Trail of Cthulhu to be a much better choice for purist-style games, and Realms of Cthulhu (Savage Worlds) for pulp-style games. Yet my group and I still rely on CoC. As much as we kvetch over its shortcomings (and we do, at each and every get-together), it&#39;s a comfortable old pair of slippers that we can&#39;t bear to throw away.Stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11677895164302972957noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-55661725428476720882012-02-22T14:26:31.799-05:002012-02-22T14:26:31.799-05:00Wracking my brain to recall how exactly I bumped a...Wracking my brain to recall how exactly I bumped across HPL, but it certainly via a reading route rather than a gaming route. Probably either via REH, who I read voraciously, or Brian Lumley.<br /><br />CoC always seemed to work best when it was the cultists and conspiracists, and even the skeptics and law enforcement that most commonly engaged the players and kept them from actually glimpsing a minion, let alone the mind-shattering Old Ones. But withholding Christmas is always a precarious task, if you want to keep players playing (they&#39;re there to see Cthulhu, damn it!). And that expectation always led to &quot;encounter inflation&quot; that nearly always inserted a pedestrian commonness into the game.<br /><br />One of my best runs on CoC was taking the characters back to Innsmouth in the modern era, after it had been sealed off and occupied by naval intelligence. That led to a whole unfolded campaign where the U.S. military had it in its head that the Old Ones were some kind of super weapon of deterrence, and of course Cold War Soviet agents were well on to this, too. All that played in the background, but it did seem to ameliorate the common understanding these creatures did exist, and it injected a particular kind of horror that officials with their hands on the levers of power were little better than extremely well equipped cultists. Gave new meaning to the term MAD.<br /><br />On a similar note, the best Lovecraft scenario I ever ran was using the AFTERMATH gun rules with a heavily armed Band of Brothers trapped behind enemy lines after the Battle of the Bulge. When Cyäegha raised its hoary head, I think the players really did think they were losing their marbles, it came out of nowhere and was entirely unexpected from a game system of Bradley tanks and high explosives.<br /><br />A pulp magazine story on hand gave them the clues to survive, to put the Old One back in his well, not one of these brave boys having the slightest Mythos knowledge.<br /><br />I think there&#39;s something to that, that CoC play only really works when it goes completely off the rails and into unexpected areas the players can&#39;t prepare for. That&#39;s why, when you break out CoC—glorious a game as it is, I love it—you have instantly telegraphed an expectation and a familiarity of game play.Pat Henryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06787799814630339641noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7487871339000666216.post-90194119679411515722012-02-22T13:46:41.392-05:002012-02-22T13:46:41.392-05:00The Dunwich Horror had an &quot;investigator party...The Dunwich Horror had an &quot;investigator party&quot; very fitting of a CoC game afaic. Yeah, in general the stories focus on individual protagonists, but thats true of pretty much all the genre fiction rpgs are based on. The games are different from literature.Donhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00323022731513484213noreply@blogger.com